With a loaded recruiting class, Calipari sets high standard for 2013-14

It was nearly 40 minutes of classic Calipari. There were challenges to his players and fans. There were swipes at Louisville and Indiana without either school ever being mentioned by name. And there was the tone set for the next edition of Kentucky basketball, which is as bold as any he’s set forth before.

Kentucky coach John Calipari sat down with the media Wednesday now that all matters could be discussed, given that the final recruit the Wildcats were pursuing, forward Andrew Wiggins, on Tuesday chose to play college basketball at Kansas.

That setback did not deter Calipari from what he already has established as the standard for the 2013-14 Wildcats.

“We’re chasing perfection. We’re chasing greatness. We’re chasing things that have never been done before in the history of this game,” Calipari said. “It’s never been done … in the modern era.”

So that’s what he’s saying to us now (and to Indiana’s 1976 team and some from UCLA and one each from North Carolina and San Francisco). An unbeaten season is the goal, something that hasn’t been accomplished since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

That’s a lot to consider given that Kentucky brings in eight new players to a team that didn’t even reach the NCAA Tournament last season, but Calipari is not retreating from this. He first started talking about “chasing perfection” nearly a month ago. It’s possible he thought he would land Wiggins, the nation’s top recruit, at that point. But he said it shouldn’t change the outlook.

“I’m as confident before and after his decision,” Calipari said. “I wish him well. He’s a great kid and is going to be a terrific basketball player. I was confident in this team and what we have before and after.”

Entering his fifth season at Kentucky, Calipari has seen two of his teams reach the Final Four and the 2012 squad win the NCAA title, but attracting a recruiting class with five top-20 players and retaining center Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress has given the Wildcats seven potential future first-round draft choices.

Calipari said he will gather with his assistant coaches early next week in a sort of coaches' retreat at which they will discuss what each player in the program needs from them in order to be successful.

“We’ll have a talented team,” Calipari said. “They need (to be) coached. They need to be taught the level of commitment, intensity, the will to win. The alpha males that we didn’t have a year ago, I think we have, and those guys, they can lead, but they’ve got to lead in the way we need to be led.”

Calipari said the difference between having Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s leadership in 2011-12 and last season’s vacuum at the top—as well as the thin roster that resulted from not signing enough players—was the difference in having not a single bad practice in the championship season and having maybe five good ones in the NIT year.

“You have to have more than eight scholarship players,” Calipari said. “I was trying to protect players in the program. What you learn is you can’t protect players. They don’t have to play 30 minutes to reach their dreams. If I had to do it over again, we would have had a couple more players.

“I don’t have any regrets where I gave guys more than one chance to make it and it hurt our team. It’s about each individual player. I can tell you, guys got the full season to prove themselves. If I’m going to err, it’s going to be on the side of the player. If it were your son, what would you want me to do?”

Calipari was asked how he’d handle the overwhelming expectations that will be accorded the Kentucky team, including the suggestion the Wildcats should just be handed that title. That’s a hard notion to quantify; they are only a 4-1 favorite to win the title, according to Linemakers, which hardly is prohibitive.

“I don’t buy into any of that. If anybody thinks this is easy, we’ve got a lot of coaches that have taken the elite prospects, and it hasn’t worked out,” Calipari said.

But he still is creating some of that pressure himself with the “perfection” talk.

“It wakes you up a little earlier in the morning,” Calipari said. “I don’t mind a little pressure. You know what? I’m at my best when the gun is to my head. Players are the same. I’m not saying if we lose a game, it is not a successful season. No. But you’re chasing greatness. What’s wrong with that?”

Calipari said that even though he doesn’t expect to play all 13 players, but more likely eight or nine, having a deeper roster will allow the Wildcats to play a more aggressive style of defense—perhaps even pressing more, like reigning NCAA champion Louisville. Although the rules committee said last week officials will be charged with permitting more freedom of movement for offensive players, Calipari is unconvinced those orders will be carried out.

"They’re saying all this stuff about the charge/block and we’re not going to let them foul … do you really believe that? You watch the games,” Calipari said. “The more you foul, the more you shoot free throws. I don’t understand how that works. So we’re going to press, play more physical, bump and grind, put our arms up in the air and hip-check guys—that’s how we’re going to play. Because now we have numbers.”